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Inside System Storage -- by Tony Pearson

Tony Pearson is a Master Inventor and Senior Software Engineer for the IBM Storage product line at the
IBM Executive Briefing Center in Tucson Arizona, and featured contributor
to IBM's developerWorks. In 2016, Tony celebrates his 30th year anniversary with IBM Storage. He is
author of the Inside System Storage series of books. This blog is for the open exchange of ideas relating to storage and storage networking hardware, software and services. You can also follow him on Twitter @az990tony.
(Short URL for this blog: ibm.co/Pearson
)

Well, I'm back from my relaxing vacation in New Zealand and Fiji. Yes, we hada few earthquakes near Milford Sound, several avalanches that blocked some roads, a few power outages, and we walked in a rain storm for three hours after our bus broke down. But overall, it was fun.

This week I am in Seoul, South Korea for various business meetings. The best part is that I am almost already acclimated to the time zone, since New Zealand was GMT+11 and Fijiwas GMT+12, I am hoping that I will adjust fast this week.

South Korea is part of our "BRICK" countries--those emerging markets made up of Brazil,Russia, India, China and Korea that represent IBM's spearhead into the SMB marketplace.[Read More]

Two European scientists, Albert Fert (France) and Peter Grunberg (Germany) have won the 2007 Nobel Prize for physics for their research into Giant Magnetoresistance, or GMR. GMR read/write heads are used in IBM disk systems.

New high-density dual-coated particulate magnetic tape: Developed by Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd., in Japan in collaboration with IBM Almaden researchers, this next-generation version of its NANOCUBIC™ tape uses a new barium-ferrite magnetic media that enables high-density data recording without using expensive metal sputtering or evaporation coating methods.

More sensitive read-write head: For the first time, magnetic tape technology employs the sensitive giant-magnetoresistive (GMR) head materials and structures used to sense very small magnetic fields in hard disk drives.

GMR servo reader: New GMR servo-reading elements, software and fast-and-precise positioning devices provides an active feedback system with unprecedented 0.35-micron accuracy in monitoring and positioning the read-write head over the 1.5-micron-wide residual data track.

Improved tape-handling features: Flangeless, grooved rollers permit smoother high-speed passage of the tape, which also enhances the ability of the head to write and read high-density data.

Innovative signal processing algorithms for the read data channel: An advanced read channel used new "noise-predictive, maximum-likelihood" (NPML) software developed at IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory to process the captured data faster and more accurately than would have been possible with existing methods.

IBM often leverages the research done in one part of its business over to other parts of its business. In this manner, advances in disk translate into advances in tape, keeping tape a viable medium for at least the next 8-10 years.

This is great news for everyone. I have said before that VMware is perhaps the best product EMC offers, and some EMC bloggers have returned the favor saying that SVC might just be the best disk system that IBM offers. While IBM and EMCare heavily competitive in other aspects of the IT storage industry, when it comes to delivering what is right for the customer, we can set aside those differences. IBM is the number one reseller of VMware, and it is a great pairing with SAN Volume Controller.

Of course, it is not a free-for-all. VMware has a few restrictions at this time:

The VMware certification is limited to Windows operating system, specifically those listed on its [Guest OS Guide].The list looks fairly extensive, so if you were running Windows guests on VMware to SVC today via RPQ,you are probably covered. However, if you are running NetWare or Linux, then the VMware certification doesnot yet apply.

host bus adapters

Only Qlogic host bus adapters are supported at this time. This is because VMware directly communicates to the host bus adapters as part of its "I/O virtualization" capabilities, and needs to work with or test with all the other HBA manufacturers.

no RDM support

Raw Device Mapping (RDM) mode is currently not yet supported. This probably will only affect a small percentage of customers, as I don't know of any major applications that require this.

Of course, most of these issues can probably be addressed with additional testing, or minor software changes, and IBM will work with VMware to prioritize what added testing or software changes are needed to expand this support.

I am Tony Pearson, storage consultant at the IBM Executive Briefing Center, located in Tucson, Arizona. I have degrees in Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering from the University of Arizona. Over the past 20 years, I have worked in a variety of storage roles, including development projects, product and portfolio management, testing, field support, marketing, and now am doing storage consulting.

There are a lot of things to discuss related to storage, and I am never short of opinions. As such, the standard IBM disclaimer applies: “The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.”

I have invited other IBMers to post their opinions, and when they do, their opinions may not necessarily match mine either.

This is an open two-way conversation between IBM, Business Partners, Independent Software Vendors, prospect and existing clients. I encourage everyone to post comments about our products, services, and marketing efforts.

I welcome HDS into the "Super High-End" club. Those who follow my blog might remember thatI suggested that analysts like IDC that use "Entry Level", "Midrange" and "Enterprise" as categoriesmay need a New Category: Super High End.

I was not surprised to see EMC, who now drops further down in perception, dispute HDS's recent SPC-1 benchmarks.Fellow blogger EMC's BarryB posted on his Storage Anarchist blog [IBM vs. Hitachi] thatpoints out that IBM's SAN Volume Controller (SVC) is still much faster, and less expensive, than USP-V.

So, just in case you haven't seen all the press releases, here is a quick recap on the results:IBM SVC 4.2 is still in first place, then HDS USP-V, then IBM System Storage DS8300. Just for comparison, I includeour IBM System Storage DS4800 midrange disk results, so you can appreciate the difference between midrange and high-end.There are other products from other vendors, I just point out a few from IBM and HDS here in this graph.

HDS tried to come up with a phrase "Enterprise Storage System" for comparison that would leave the SVC 4.2 out.Given that the SVC has five nines (99.999%) availability, has non-disruptive upgrade and firmware update capability, has more than two processors typical of midrange products, and can connect to mainframes via z/VM, z/VSE andLinux on System z operating systems, there is no reason to pretend SVC isn't Enterprise-class.

The irony now is that EMC now looks very lonely being one of the last remaining major storage vendors not to participate in standardized benchmarks that help customers make purchase decisions, as mentioned both by IBM's BarryW: I guess that only leaves EMC, as well as HDS's Claus Mikkelsen: Olympics of Storage.

Earlier this year, EMC's Chuck Hollis opined[Storage Scorecard]that the EMC DMX and HDS TagmaStore USP were high-endboxes, which I would speculate both of these would fall somewhere between DS4800 and DS8300 on the graph above.If that is the case, it is impressive that HDS was able to re-engineer their USP-V to be 2-3x faster thanits predecessor, the USP.

Not all workloads are the same, and your mileage may vary. While I can't speak to HDS, the folks over atEMC have assured me, in writingcomments on this blog, that there is nothing preventing their customers from publishingtheir own performance comparisons between EMC and non-EMC equipment. I would encourage every customer to do this, between IBM and HDS, HDS and EMC, and between IBM and EMC, to help shed even more light on this area.In fact, you can even run your own SPC benchmarks to see how your own environment compares to the ones published.

Of course, performance is just one attribute on which to choose a storage vendor, and to choose specific products,models or features. For more information about Storage Performance Council and the SPC-1 and SPC-2 benchmarks,see my week-long series on SPC benchmarks, which are listed in reverse chronological order.

Go to the official Storage Performance Council website to read the details of the SPC-1 results.

Today, 13.5% of EMC's sales force is female, the company says, compared with 40% at International Business Machines Corp. and 29% at CA Inc., a big software vendor, those companies say. According to the 2000 U.S. census, about 25% of high-tech employees nationally were women.

IBM recognizes that diversity provides unique advantages in dealing with a global marketplace. Not only are women well represented on our IT sales force, they are also well represented on our board of directors, our Worldwide Management Committee, and our executive team overall, as well as in technical positions such as IBM Fellows, Distinguished Engineers, members of the IBM Academy of Technology. Working Mother magazine has rated IBM one of the top 10 "Best Companies" for women to work for in each of the 18 years that it has published this list.

In 2006, 51 camps called EXITE (Exploring Interests in Technology and Engineering) were held worldwide in 33 countries. The hope is to get young girls to pursue college degrees in computer science, math and engineering, so that they can then help fill the shortage of technical resources in IT.

So, if you are a women discouraged at your current place of employment, and are looking for exciting new opportunities in IT, come check out working for IBM![Read More]

Over the past year and a half, I have been focused on explaining WHAT IBM System Storage was, and WHY IBM should be considered when making a storage purchase decision. Let's recapsome of IBM's accomplishments during this time:

Today, October 1, I switch over to HOW to get it done. In my new job role, I will be leading a seriesof projects and workshops on how to make your data center more green, how to get more value from the information you have, how to better protect your information from unauthorized access or unethical tampering, how to develop and deploya site-wide business continuity plan, and how to centralize your management using open industry standards.

I will still be in Tucson, but am moving from building 9032 over to 9070 to be closer to the rest of my team.